Notre Dame Law School and the Bank of America Foundation have named Christina Jones and Nicholas Bedenk this year’s Bank of America Foundation Community Sustainability Fellows. The Bank of America Foundation Community Sustainability Fellowship places NDLS graduates in agencies or private nonprofits for a two-year term.

The highest bidder at the Fr. Mike Show, Dean Lapp has worked as an analyst for the intelligence branch of the State Department and as an advisor to Senator Rob Portman. Additionally, he has experience in the non-profit world, having spent time researching the role of mentoring in academic success. He has been published in the Financial Times for his views on metaphors in political speech and the relevance of Roman history to recent events.

Dedicated by the Class of 1975 to the memory of Peter A.R. Lardy and “those who exemplify his Courage, Love, and Understanding toward his fellow man,” the fellowship includes a substantial tuition remission for the recipient’s third year of law school.

Kelly Jentzen Thompson, J.D. ’12, of Arlington, Virginia, and Rachel Odio, J.D. ’12, of Costa Rica will be spending the next two years serving as the Law School’s 2012 Notre Dame Fellows in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California.

Highly competitive, the Notre Dame Fellowship award requires applicants to develop and propose a two-year public interest program to be implemented with a host agency and a willing supervising attorney. Funded entirely by the law school’s benefactors, the Fellowship pays the Fellows’ salaries and employer-provided health and other benefits for two years.

Along with the second-year trial teams that compete in the American Association of Justice trial competition each year, Notre Dame’s third-year trial teams, The Barristers Trial Teams, are making NDLS a force to be reckoned with on the national trial competition stage.

Adrienne M. de la Rosa has been awarded the Peter Lardy Memorial Fellowship for the 2012-13 academic year. Dedicated by the Class of 1975 to the memory of Peter A.R. Lardy and “those who exemplify his Courage, Love, and Understanding toward his fellow man,” the fellowship includes a $20,000 tuition remission for the recipient’s third year of law school.

NDLS student Brian Michel recently argued a Miranda violation case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Brian was selected for the honor after competing for an NDLS Moot Court Board position as part of the NDLS Moot Court program. The Moot Court program, which coordinates intramural and intercollegiate competitions in its appellate, trial, and international divisions, is run by NDLS students and overseen by Legal Writing Program Director Christine Venter.

“My client had been convicted of first-degree murder under the accountability theory, and sentenced to 28 years for his role in a Chicago shooting,” Michel said.

“His argument throughout trial was that the police refused to provide him with access to counsel. On appeal, we took the position that the Illinois Appellate Court had failed to look at the totality of the circumstances surrounding my client’s confession when it refused to believe his claims that he had repeatedly requested counsel during his seventeen-hour interrogation.

“Personally, I saw my involvement in this case as the highlight of my time at Notre Dame. It was rewarding to defend my client’s basic right to an attorney, a right which is so crucial to a fair criminal justice system.”

An NDLS American Association of Justice (AAJ) Trial Team was victorious at the AAJ Student Trial Advocacy Regional Competition held in Louisville, Ky., March 1-4. The team will now go on to compete in the AAJ Student Trial Advocacy National Competition held in Las Vegas and sponsored by the American Association for Justice. The Regional Champion team was comprised of John Burke, Nicole Cabezas, Mauri Miller and Brian Salvi. The Regional Runner-up team was comprised of Liz Farrington, Charles Galvin, Lauren Quigley and Jihan Williams.

3Ls Ryan Raybould and Caitlin Shetter recently competed in the Fifth Annual UC Davis Asylum and Refugee Law National Moot Court Competition. Ms. Shetter and Mr. Raybould made it to the finals and placed fifth out of 22 teams nationally, earning Notre Dame Law School a plaque and a Top 8 placement in Notre Dame’s first year participating in this moot court competition.

The team earned top marks from the judges and high praise for Notre Dame. > Read More

Summer 2011 Research Interns with the Program on Law and Human Development (PLHD) described their experiences conducting research on “Migration, Law and Human Development” at a law school event November 2.…

The Sister Jean Lenz, O.S.F., Leadership Award, given to a post-baccalaureate student who displays leadership in promoting a more diverse and inclusive campus community, was awarded to Jacqueline Pimentel-Gannon of Indianapolis.

Half of Notre Dame Law School’s first-year class—92 students—spent several days last semester exploring public interest lawyering around the country through the GALILEE program. An acronym for Group Alternative Live-In Legal Education, GALILEE introduces Notre Dame law students to the legal problems of the urban poor in ways impossible to learn in the classroom. One participating student, Wendy Tran, recorded her thoughts throughout her experience at various agencies in Los Angeles.

Notre Dame Law School’s Center for Civil and Human Rights (CCHR) has awarded internship funding to three J.D. students, thanks to the generosity of the CCHR’s Advisory Committee. The internship program, now in its second year, makes it financially possible for J.D. students to seek unpaid human rights-related summer internships.

When Ashon McKenzie graduates from Notre Dame Law School in May, he will have already argued a case before one of the most respected judges and legal scholars in the nation—Richard Allen Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit—thanks to his placement on the Appellate Moot Court Board.

I am pleased to announce that Robert Anthony Sharp will become the 11th Dean of the University of Notre Dame Law School on April 27, 2010 and has agreed to serve in that important and August position until April 28, 2010. During Dean Sharp’s short – but surely memorable – deanship, I will return to the faculty to concentrate on my research.

The American College of Bankruptcy selected 3L Ryan Dattilo as the 7th Circuit’s 2010 Distinguished Bankruptcy Law Student. Along with four distinguished students from other judicial circuits, Dattilo was an honoree of the College at its annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Unique in size and scope, Notre Dame Law School’s Summer Stipend Program allows more than 100 students each year to pursue legal work with a public service component, providing them with valuable skills, contacts, and experience.

“I am fortunate that my professors refuse to allow classes to focus on the nuts and bolts of black letter law or merely memorizing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or Evidence. I am constantly challenged to examine the policy underlying a particular set of rules or the societal implications of judges’ decisions.”